The Ones Who are Gone

June 3 being the 11th anniversary of me starting chemo, I thought it was a perfect day to get out a campaign update.

Hello again. It's been about three weeks since I kicked off my campaign to raise money for the mission of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society while training for the Crawlin' Crab Half Marathon in Hampton this October. So, here I am with a campaign update, and today being the exact 11 year mark of me starting chemo for Hodgkin's lymphoma seems like the perfect day to get this out. Things are going well - I'm putting in about four to five miles at a time in training. I am still sticking to walking (although I did run two solid miles on an anti-gravity treadmill today as part of PT), but continue to try to improve my sore knee so that I can hopefully do some road running later this summer. And on the fundraising front, things are moving along thanks to people's generosity. I'd like to again thank the folks who have donated to LLS thus far through my efforts, including anonymous donors.

If you want to make a donation, get more information, or see my list of people I will be honoring during the race, the starting point is my Team in Training webpage. Come on, donate some clams and help me make Cancer the Crab scuttle away in fear!

http://pages.teamintraining.org/va/crwlncrb13/afritter

This is my sixth time doing Team in Training, but there is something quite different for me this time. For the very first time, my sister Ann is no longer here. For five TNT campaigns, Ann was among my biggest supporters. She always donated extremely generously, she enjoyed getting my campaign updates and gave me feedback on them, and seemed proud of what I was doing. Even after developing cancer herself in 2007, she continued to be a big supporter. She fought so hard for over four years, determined to find a way to keep living. And then, on Memorial Day 2011, she was gone. I think of her every day and miss her deeply, and know that I am far from alone in that.

The second anniversary of my sister's death a few days ago caused me to think back to her memorial service, and how difficult it was to know that she was gone, and that I would never see her again on this earth. But it also made me remember a rainbow that I saw over her beloved Tremper Mountain the day before the service. I will share the story of that rainbow here:

http://racn4acure.blogspot.com/2013/05/anns-rainbow.html

I think of all the people I knew who are now gone - very much too young and too soon - because of cancer, especially in the last two and a half years. And I am willing to bet that a large number of people getting this note have a hole in their lives that was once filled by loved ones who are gone now because of cancer. Nothing we can do will change that, but what we can do is to go forward and try to make a positive difference in the world, to work towards a cure so that all types of cancer become curable or at the least manageable.

In my case, I am using my legs and feet to propel myself 13.1 miles in October, and I am hoping that you will be inspired and motivated to use your fingers on your keyboard (or on a pen with your checkbook) to make a donation to the mission of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society: to find cures for all blood cancers. So, let your fingers do the walking - I'll take care of the miles for you with my feet!

As always, to anyone making a donation, if it is in honor of someone dealing with any type of cancer, or in memory of someone who is now gone, just let me know, and I will write their name on the honoree page of my Racing for a Cure Blog, and on my Crawlin' Crab race shirt.

Thank you for reading my update and message, and thank you for the support.

Art